


thou hast thy music too

by bee_kind



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV), Peter Pan & Related Fandoms, Peter Pan - J. M. Barrie
Genre: Gen, I am lost boy trash, Someone stop me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-02
Updated: 2015-11-02
Packaged: 2018-04-29 13:01:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5128592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bee_kind/pseuds/bee_kind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Why?”</p><p>She paused at that, hand stopping halfway through stroking the boy’s hair. It’s then that Peter can see the hands clutching at her shirt, the form of another small boy in the bed behind her, the way every single lost boy in the room is sleeping angled toward her. It’s then that he feels a pang of something he doesn’t quite understand as she shifts subtly and draws the child in her arms closer. </p><p>“Why do they come here?” The Tiger Lily sighs and brushes Snivel’s hair back away from his face. “They’re children, Pan. They need someone to kiss their wounds and sing them to sleep.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	thou hast thy music too

When his boys got hurt, if often passed outside his sphere of notice. He rarely noticed their bruises garnered from play fights or in-camp little spats, didn’t at all when arrows nicked them or hit their mark. His eyes weren’t swayed for sharp cries of pain, and his boys knew better than to come to him for sympathy. They were little soldiers and he was their leader. Their immortal, fearless leader; far be it from him to take notice of decay. They hid their wounds and licked them in the security of their hammocks late at night, when everyone was asleep or too worn from the day to pay any mind to the stifled sniffling of tears.   
  
They always got better, though, and that he did notice. When Kicks favored his left leg a little less, or Bitey stopped whining about the arrowhead stuck in his leg or Chub had a clean bandage over the festering knife wound on his arm, he took notice. The Pan was blind because he chose to be, and these days it was so easy to gain his gaze. One simply had to do or be something out of the ordinary, something that broke the daily monotony his existence had become.   
  
The Tiger Lily smashed it to pieces. He hadn’t thought, when he’d dragged her from her people’s  camp in the dead of night kicking and cursed and slashing, that she’d ever let go of the first part of her namesake. She was a savage beauty and he knew if he’d given her the opportunity, she’d have slit his throat without hesitation. He didn’t give her the opportunity and neither did any of his boys. They’d never seen someone outright challenge their leader and they knew better than to stray too near to the tiger’s cage. At least, he thought they did.

 **  
**He watches for a week as his boys go down the path that leads to the tree house with sticks and sheets and come back, sporting bandages and splints. He realizes he needs to do something about it when boys start going and not coming back. He follows late one night when the camp is quiet, two hours after the last lost boy has made his way down the path he’s keeping her.  
  
He doesn’t bother with the ladder to the treehouse, just drifts up it and lands softly on the porch, pushing the curtain aside so he can see inside. She’s sitting at the edge of her bed, cradling a small boy and singing to him quietly. He voice stops abruptly the second he exhales.   
  
“You musn’t lurk in doorways.” She doesn’t look up from her task, arms still enveloping the sleeping lost boy in her arms. “I’ve been told it’s rude.”   
  
Peter snorts in derision, but he still takes a step inside, something akin to hesitancy in his step. The floor is littered with his tiny fallen soldiers, all bandaged and wrapped tightly in the sheets from her bed, the very picture of serenity. His eyes sweep over them and back up to the Tiger Lily.   
  
“They’ve been coming to you.”  
  
“I didn’t ask them to do that.”  
  
“They’ve been calling you Tiger-Mother.” **  
  
**“I didn’t ask them to do that either.”  
  
He hums, deep in his throat and skirts around the sleeping bodies of the boys, avoiding fingers and hair and toes so  that he can hover over her as she rocks the boy in her arms. The child couldn’t have been more than six, and it showed. If he remembered correctly, the other boys called him Snivel. He cried almost every night, they all had when they’d first come, but Snivel had been with them a year and his tears hadn’t dried up.   
  
“Why?”  
  
She paused at that, hand stopping halfway through stroking the boy’s hair. It’s then that Peter can see the hands clutching at her shirt, the form of another small boy in the bed behind her, the way every single lost boy in the room is sleeping angled toward her. It’s then that he feels a pang of something he doesn’t quite understand as she shifts subtly and draws the child in her arms closer.   
  
“Why do they come here?” The Tiger Lily sighs and brushes Snivel’s hair back away from his face. “They’re children, Pan. They need someone to kiss their wounds and sing them to sleep.”   
  
“Show me.” She looks at him then, dark eyes unreadable and he swears for a moment, he sees a look of pity flash over her face.  
  
“Oh, Peter...” She sounds disappointed, as if she’d been confronted with something unpleasant. She watches as her eyes dance over the lost boys on her floor, over their broken limbs and bruised faces, over their bandaged arrow wounds and burns from standing too close to hidden geysers, and finally her eyes return to him. She gives a single, slow shake of her head. “...you’re no child.”


End file.
